United States? Gentlemen argue about the
Constitution as if the territory and the peo-
ple we're not parts of the Constitution; as if
there could be a Constitution without a terri-
tory and without a people. I say the Con-
stitution of the United States is nothing but
the expressed will of the people. It is noth-
ing but that organization in which resides the
soul of the people; and as the human soul will
go on into an eternity of existence, either of
happiness or of misery, long after this body
shall have crumbled in the dust, the people
of this country or of any country, will live
until time itself shall be no more, although
every fragment of their Constitution may
have perished in the dust.
What becomes then of this doctrine that
coercion is not only unconstitutional but that
it is immoral and unnecessary. Mr friend
from Prince George's, the other day, (Mr.
Belt, ) seemed to be exceedingly aroused by
the fact that under the despotism at Wash-
ington, soldiers of the extreme territories,
that had no State existence, were marched
upon the soil of Virginia, into a sovereign
State, with all the powers of government and
with all the history of the past clustering
around her. Is there anybody to deny that
every citizen of the United States has a com-
mon right of territorial ownership in all the
territory of the United States? that he has a
common right to go into them all? that he
has a common right to live in them all? Will
any man claim that he has not as good a
right to walk over the county roads of Vir-
ginia as any citizen of Virginia? Is not that
a portion of the land which is declared to be
free to all, by the Constitution of the United
States, the supreme law of the land? What
does the Constitution mean by saying that it
shall be the supreme law of the land? What
"land?" It is the common territory em-
braced within the limits of all the States, and
of the territories of the United States not
formed into States; these are the lands over
which the Constitution is supreme. I deny
the right of the people of the State of Vir-
ginia or of any State to take away from me as
an individual citizen of the United States any
portion of that land over which the Consti-
tution is the supreme law. The people out
in Montana, no doubt, thought it was not in
the power of anybody in Virginia to say to
them that the Government of the United
States should be destroyed and shorn of its
territory, by which shearing of its territory
and power they were to be left defenceless,
and their position as citizens diminished, and
their rights as individuals impaired, and their
position among the people of the world de-
graded and disgraced, unless they had the
right to resent the insult and defend their
country.
Who is the citizen of Virginia? Because
he is a descendant of the fathers of the Con-
stitution has he any more rights than any- |
body else. Has not the citizen of Montana
as much a right to enter Virginia as if his
mother were the mother of five thousand pre-
sidents? Every citizen of Montana has the
right, under the call of the Government of
the United States, I say it with all serious-
ness and I say it with regret that it should
be necessary, to desolate every foot of Vir-
ginia soil, and to slay every citizen of Vir-
ginia, if Virginia undertakes to bar his way,
us a citizen of the United States, when the
Government of the United States calls upon
him as a soldier to protect that transit. He
has the right to slay every citizen of Virginia
if it is necessary to accomplish that result.
His moral right to do so must depend, before
God, upon the rights and necessities of the
case.
What a spectacle has been produced here
in our own State? What is the reason we
had those scenes? What would have been
the position of Maryland under the arbitra-
ment which gentlemen claim? Gentlemen
talk about the absolute right of revolution ;
a right which makes the parties who under-
take the revolution the sole arbiters. I
would not go back and refer at all to events
in Maryland; but I will ask what would
have been the result here if that doctrine had
been carried out to its practical effect. Sup-
pose under the state of things here, a majority
of the people of this State, not so large in
point of numbers as to command any certain
physical power, a bare majority, had declared
their adhesion to this new government, and
seceded from the Government of the United
States. What would have been the position
of Maryland? Will any man tell me that
that act would have stripped me of any right
I possessed before? that that act would have
taken from me my rights as an American cit-
izen? that that act would have taken away
my right to call the flag of the United States
I my flag? No, sir. If such a revolution had
been attempted by a majority or a minority,
they would have been met in the streets and
roads, and on the door-steps in every part of
the State, by another portion of the people,
majority or minority, who would have told
them that if they undertook to trample upon
this flag, their pathway must be over their
dead bodies, for they would protect it with
their life-blood. For one, I say here, that
under no consideration would I have passed
under the dominion of the Confederacy, unless
I had been shackled with fetters, and bonds,
and prison bars, I would have remained
within its bounds sufficiently long to make
my preparations to move, if resistance had
ceased to be possible, and then should have
left it for some clime where liberty reigned
and peace prevailed; and I would have fol-
lowed the banner of my fathers, wherever it
might float, though it might be in solitary
grandeur on the fastness of New England.
Is not the fact demonstrable, that if there |
